Sunday, December 20, 2009

260. The Baseline Scenarios -- 36: The Gap

The first thing I'd like to call your attention to is the saturation of tone languages in Africa. This map is taken from a remarkable website, The World Atlas of Language Structures Online (WALS), consisting of 141 maps of distinctive linguistic features, and as far as I've been able to determine, it's very unusual for any one region to be dominated by a single trait. The chances of this being a coincidence have to be pretty close to nil. If modern humans originated in Africa, then the earliest languages, including the language spoken by the Out of Africa migrants (HMP), were almost certainly tonal.

The next thing I'd like to call your attention to is the comparable saturation of tone languages in Southeast Asia and also Melanesia -- here too coincidence seems highly unlikely. Since these are areas populated by many indigenous groups, hunter-gatherers or horticulturalists, the saturation of tonal languages is most likely part of a broader pattern of cultural inheritance from HMC, as evidenced by other important features I'll be discussing presently.

If this is the case, then what are we to make of the areas along the same pathway where tone is almost completely absent? The dearth of tone languages in Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea and much of Island Melanesia can easily be explained by the relatively recent expansion of Austronesian speaking agriculturalists throughout this region beginning around 8,000 years ago. But India, Pakistan and Australia are not part of this development, and their non-tonal languages are much, much older. Since the very long South Asian coastline represents an important segment of the Out of Africa path, one would expect to find tonal languages here as well. And since both the archaeological and genetic evidence indicates that Australia was a very early, if remote, offshoot from the Out of Africa migration, the total absence of tonal languages on that continent is also extremely puzzling.

A pattern begins to emerge, however, as we realize that essentially the same odd distribution applies to certain other important characteristics, morphological, genetic and cultural, that, taken alone, are equally puzzling. For example, as I've already noted, those peoples in Asia and Oceania closest morphologically to African pygmies (thus likely to resemble HMP -- see Post 254), usually referred to as negritos, are not found at all in South Asia (aside from the Andaman Islands, well to the south and east), but are relatively common in Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Melanesia.

While Africa is famous for its remarkably rich traditions of wood carving and mask design, comparably elaborate artistic traditions are not found until we go beyond South Asia to indigenous peoples in parts of Malaysia, Indonesia and Melanesia, where some of the resemblances to African carvings, both artistic and contextual, are truly striking. If these were were traditions maintained by HMC, as seems very likely, why aren't they found in equal abundance everywhere along the Out of Africa trail?

The same question could be applied to the musical traditions of HMC, dominated as they must have been by P/B style. The "African signature" I've written so much about is essentially absent from the musical practices of both South Asia and Australia. This mystery is discussed at some length in my essay, Echoes of Our Forgotten Ancestors and also on this blog, beginning with Post 12. As I wrote in "Echoes,"

If the original Out-of-Africa group moved uniformly all the way from Africa down the coast of south Asia to the Malay Peninsula and from there down through Indonesia to New Guinea and Australia, as is sometimes claimed, then we musicologists have a problem. While many indigenous groups along the “beachcomber” route sing and play in a manner strongly reminiscent of P/B style, there has to my knowledge never been any instance of such a style found anywhere in Australia (p. 30).

Essentially the same absence applies to the entirety of the Near East and South Asia. In none of these regions have I as yet found more than the faintest traces of P/B, either vocal or instrumental -- no hocket, no interlock, no hocketing pipe, flute, trumpet or panpipe ensembles, no stamping tubes, no hocketing gong or percussion ensembles, maybe the occasional slit drum. Yet once we move into the same region where tone languages, negrito hunter-gatherers, and African-style carvings and masks are found, all the above musical practices, and the instruments associated with them, are also found -- in abundance. So what gives?

The same gap appears in the genetic evidence, interestingly enough. Stephen Oppenheimer has written as follows, regarding

the paradox of the Indian genetic picture, in which the genetic trail of the beachcombers can be detected, but the bulk of Indian subgroups...are unique to the subcontinent, especially among the tribes of the south-east. This is what we would expect for a recovery from a great disaster (The Real Eve, p. 193).

Oppenheimer had a very specific disaster in mind, by the way,

“the greatest natural calamity to befall any humans, ever,” the eruption, c. 70,000-74,000 years ago, of Mount Toba, in Sumatra. The explosion was so vast it left a plume of ash over the entirety of India for approximately five years, what Oppenheimer has called a “nuclear winter,” in which almost every living thing in that area would have been wiped out (The Real Eve, p. 82). This is one of the very few events in prehistory that can be precisely dated and measured, since “a metres-thick ash layer is found throughout the region.” ("Echoes," p. 31).

Though the evidence that modern humans were in Asia at the time Toba erupted is both slim and controversial, there is in fact very good reason to believe that some sort of calamity befel HMP's descendants during their great migration eastward. I discussed this possibility at some length in Post 12, where I presented the following map, illustrating how the early history of the Out of Africa migrants, and their music, could have been affected by a disaster of this sort -- in this case, a Tsunami.

I'll quote from what I wrote then:

In the first little map, titled "Out of Africa," all the arrows are red, representing the five variants of the original "Pygmy/Bushmen" style (A1 - 5 on the Phylogenetic Tree) that, as I see it, must have spread along with the original "out of Africa" migrants, following Oppenheimer's coastal route, all the way to Sundaland and beyond, turning the corner around the Moluccas, I guess and then continuing north along the SE Asiatic coast.

Mini-map 2, "Bottleneck Event," is an attempt to picture a catastrophic event that could account for the musical gap we find between Yemen and Myanmar, where little or no evidence of Pygmy/Bushmen style can be found today. According to Oppenheimer, there is a very similar gap in the genetic evidence, though, as I understand, not everyone agrees about this. As I see it, only some sort of catastrophe at some point from, say, 75,000 to 50,000 years ago, can explain all the very different musical styles we find in the world today, especially the stylesrepresented in the phylogenetic tree as B2 and B3 and their derivatives. So this map, unlike any other I've ever seen, is not based solely on continuity, but contains an abrupt break, representing the effects of the bottleneck on the various surviving groups.

13 comments:

"as far as I've been able to determine, it's very unusual for any one region to be dominated by a single trait. The chances of this being a coincidence have to be pretty close to nil. If modern humans originated in Africa, then the earliest languages, including the language spoken by the Out of Africa migrants (HMP), were almost certainly tonal."

The distribution of grammatical and phonetic features is full of regional skews. For instance, Niger-Congo languages are rich in labiovelars (kp, gb) and poor in aspirated and glottalized p's, whereas North American Indian languages are the other way around. As I argue in "The Genius of Kinship," the high frequencies of head-marking in languages in Oceania and America and high frequencies of dependent-marking languages in Europe and Africa (with attested transformations of former into latter but not the other way around) favor an out-of-America model of human dispersals. Grammatical features, however, are considered to be very stable linguistic features, hence this hypothesis is justified.

As far as tones are concerned, they are known to emerge in recent languages (a few Mayan dialects developed them, whereas ancient Mayan doesn't have them). We also know that phonetic patterns spread by diffusion (African clicks, for example). This means that current frequencies as recorded in WALS were most likely radically different in the past. Hence, I would need some proof of your assertions beyond the speculative "Occam's Razor."

Another thing: tonal languages are very diverse in terms of the type of tones they employ. Your chart doesn't map those differences. Meanwhile, Khoisan languages have tones of the same variety as Chinese (contour tones) but of a different variety than Bantu languages that have register tones.

I can see the distributional analogy between the absence of tones and of P/B style in India and Australia. However, instead of stretching the limits of believability, could you answer the following question: is there any relationship synchronically between music styles and tonal languages, as there is between glottalization and yodeling?

If the original Out-of-Africa group moved uniformly all the way from Africa down the coast of south Asia to the Malay Peninsula and from there down through Indonesia to New Guinea and Australia, as is sometimes claimed, then we musicologists have a problem.

I think that you are oversimplifying the migration. There is absolutely no need (and rather seems to go against the archaeological evidence) for a strictly beachcomber migration. A combined coastal/riverine (and even through rugged terrain) pattern seems to fit better. The Narmada-Son-Ganges route is well attested in archaeology and even the beachcombers of Southern India did at times take another shortcut through the Krishna river. In fact the strictly coastal route is not very apparent from the evidence for India's Paleolithic, though one can always blame that (probably with reason) to sea level change after the Ice Age.

Similarly but in this case from the viewpoint of population genetics, the fan-like distribution of the various lineages in East Asia and Sahul, suggests a complex spread in many branches, not too different from what you suggest in the "post-bottleneck founder effects" mini-map. However there is no need of a bottleneck to explain these founder effects.

Where you seem to need a bottleneck is at the A-B transition. Or so you argue.

But I can't help noticing that even before the hypothetical "tsunami", the Eurasian groups appear already divided, with a group already in South Asia marked as A3&4 and a variety in SE Asia, that seem to have continuity in the "Arctic" A1 and the "Pacific" B1 branches.

Now I wonder: if West Eurasians are essentially the product of one or two waves of colonization from South Asia, how can it be that some groups keep survivals of the pre-Toba period and the majority does not. I can only imagine a few ulterior migration events (Gravettian, Afroasiatics, Neolithic, Indoeuropeans), all apparently born within the region (except the Afroasiatic expansion, arguably, which should anyhow have deeper African A roots if anything).

How can you explain this duality of West Eurasian musical traditions?

Guess that the same question must be applied to all other places where there are such survivals but West Eurasia has the advantage of being clearly colonized only some 20-30 thousand years after Toba, what makes me shake my head with your explanation.

German: "is there any relationship synchronically between music styles and tonal languages, as there is between glottalization and yodeling?"

If you mean is there any structural relationship between the presence of tone language and music, I'd have to say no. It's true that certain melodies or melodic contours are affected by the text in tonal languages, but this is not considered a significant determinant of melody in most cases that I know of.

Imo, the correlation between the two distributions is due to a common external cause, NOT a cause and effect relation between the two.

Maju: "I think that you are oversimplifying the migration. There is absolutely no need (and rather seems to go against the archaeological evidence) for a strictly beachcomber migration. A combined coastal/riverine (and even through rugged terrain) pattern seems to fit better."

That's certainly possible. And as I've just posted, it looks like at least one subgroup may have taken a riverine passage up the Indus valley. As I understand it, however, the reason for positing a coastal route would be to explain why there is so little archaeological evidence that any early homo sapiens were in Asia at so early a date. The evidence would have been covered over as the Ocean level rose. It's also interesting to speculate that the original migrants (HMP) might have had a coastal culture and would thus have preferred to remain close to sources of, for example, shellfish and other salt water food sources. And there is evidence that Ocean-going boats could have been an important part of their culture -- otherwise how could they have made it to Australia so early?

Maju: "But I can't help noticing that even before the hypothetical "tsunami", the Eurasian groups appear already divided, with a group already in South Asia marked as A3&4 and a variety in SE Asia, that seem to have continuity in the "Arctic" A1 and the "Pacific" B1 branches."

See my latest post for an explanation of A3 and A4 in South Asia. As for the continuities in the later migrations, into the Arctic, etc., they are explained elsewhere in this blog, I think. P/B survives in the Arctic in the form of the hocketing "throat singing" games (actually shamanic rituals) studied by Nattiez. The exact source of this tradition is not clear, but it does represent an exception to my rule of no P/B survivals in South Asia, since it most likely originated there -- though no trace of it remains there now.

Maju: "but West Eurasia has the advantage of being clearly colonized only some 20-30 thousand years after Toba, what makes me shake my head with your explanation."

According to Oppenheimer, the passage to Europe would have been blocked by severe drought/desert conditions in the regions separating South Asia from Eastern Europe and that it was only after those climate conditions improved that the descendants of HMP would have been able to move into that area. They would meanwhile have had to stew in their juices for several thousands of years, possibly in the Indus valley, who can say? :-)

... the reason for positing a coastal route would be to explain why there is so little archaeological evidence that any early homo sapiens were in Asia at so early a date.

While the strict coastal route would explain that, I don't think any theory advocates that in any meaningful way. There is clear archaeological evidence of Homo spp. presence in the area, what there do not exist are clear bodily remains (skeletons, skulls). But that applies to Homo sapiens or to any other species. Just such remains are scarce and when the do exist (Liujiang, Guangxi jaw) somewhat controversial.

Anyhow that also happens in much better researched areas like Europe. There are no remains before certain date (and then very few) but Homo sapiens presence can and probably is older (many cultures have no associated skeletons but they look made by Sapiens, once we get the tools in context).

The issue is one of very scarce bodily remains, as makes sense for such early dates and the likely scattered populations (plus we have no idea about their funerary practices anyhow).

It's also interesting to speculate that the original migrants (HMP) might have had a coastal culture and would thus have preferred to remain close to sources of, for example, shellfish and other salt water food sources. And there is evidence that Ocean-going boats could have been an important part of their culture -- otherwise how could they have made it to Australia so early? -

I do favor that there were groups (and even a general tendency maybe) that were very linked to the coasts, and that should be specially true once you reach Wallacea and other insular scenarios (East Asian island chain or even the Ganges delta). But there must have been groups also inland and the archaeological evidence strongly suggests that. Surely once people reached South (and SE) Asia they found a diverse land where to expand and diversify themselves.

Hence the three B groups that you describe (plus surely some A groups) could perfectly have been the product of such expansion and diversification, with their corresponding founder effects and very difficult to understand complexities.

After all it's many people through many thousand years in a territory as large as Africa (or more as they expanded further).

According to Oppenheimer, the passage to Europe would have been blocked by severe drought/desert conditions in the regions separating South Asia from Eastern Europe and that it was only after those climate conditions improved that the descendants of HMP would have been able to move into that area.

It's possible (i.e. archaeologically documented - but also consider Neanderthal penetration in that area, who were highly efficient competitors). But such conditions should not have been a problem to colonize the Indian Ocean coasts for a people that had crossed (in theory) by the South Arabian coastal corridor (very arid itself). That places them practically in the Mediterranean potentially (via Red Sea). This could make even better sense if the coastal migration was coincident or the same as the one that brought H. sapiens to Palestine and North Africa c. 100,000 BP (a date that I favor more and more for the OoA, as I explore the matter from different angles).

Maju: "Surely once people reached South (and SE) Asia they found a diverse land where to expand and diversify themselves."

How do people "diversify themselves," Maju? While it's true that they must respond to differing environments, that really applies only to their material culture. It wouldn't explain why tonal languages would lose their tones or why complexly interlocking musical traditions would give way to much simpler ones. I think archaelogists, who must of necessity focus on material remains, have for a long time taken non-material culture for granted and assumed far too much regarding certain fundamental problems of cultural history.

Maju: "if the coastal migration was coincident or the same as the one that brought H. sapiens to Palestine and North Africa c. 100,000 BP (a date that I favor more and more for the OoA, as I explore the matter from different angles)."

As I understand it, the migration to Palestine (assuming you mean Shul) is regarded as a unique event that didn't have lasting consequences. Apparently, there is no evidence that this particular lineage survived.

I don't know for sure but people are not computers but highly creative beings. Each branching of communities means a cultural node and differential branching.

It's intriguing but I don't think we can go beyond speculation.

You suspect that people got alienated somehow (catastrophe) and lost contact with their roots. But where is the evidence? It's at best some vague indications.

Let's assume you and Oppenheimer are right for a moment. If so, there should be clear evidence in the phylogeny of such a highly disruptive bottleneck. But there is nothing clear I can see: ok, East Eurasians have stuff that South Asians don't have or have at smaller apportions (mtDNA N(xR); Y-DNA D and C) but what looks South Asian by origin (mtDNA M, R, Y-DNA F) has much wider and homogeneous distribution.

My best hunch, but it'd be somewhat unorthodox (specially regarding age estimates), would be that the Toba event happened after the initial expansion in Eurasia (mtDNA M, N, Y-DNA C, D, F). Then a population with Y-DNA MNOPS and mtDNA N primarily expanded over the ashes from SE Asia, in several directions:· south to Australia and New Guinea: Y-DNA P and S, mtDNA N and P (R sublineage)· north to China and Siberia: Y-DNA NO, mtDNA primarily R-derived (B, F), maybe also N9 and others· west to India but specially to West and Central Eurasia: Y-DNA P, mtDNA N1 and R-derived primarily

However mtDNA R appears to coalesce in South Asia, what means it was already in SE Asia if it had to be picked by NO. Problems again: there's always a piece that doesn't seem to fit in the puzzle.

Anyhow, I know all this is highly speculative, and I know I have to ignore some controversial standards (age estimates) to imagine that.

Whatever the case, DNA evidence says that South and SE Asia were interacting heavily for all the initial phase of the colonization of Eurasia and Sahul. Probably it was not the case at a second moment (not sure of the cause but I imagine demic pressure alone would be enough).

To me it's a pretty intriguing mess of a puzzle. And I don't expect to solve it in many years - maybe we lack key evidence and that's why it's so difficult to understand.

As I understand it, the migration to Palestine (assuming you mean Shul) is regarded as a unique event that didn't have lasting consequences. Apparently, there is no evidence that this particular lineage survived.

Skuhl/Qafzeh yes. And also related in North Africa (Aterian). I know it's speculated that way but it's not impossible that the same general group that reached to Palestine could reach further, right? Either by the coast or the interior, they would have got futher places to go.

Then you have some evidence in SE Asia (skeletal remains, controversial in one sense or another but real), South Asia (industries tightly related to South African MSA, cf. Petraglia) and maybe even Japan (non-Mousterian, non-Acheulea industries c. 120,000 BP). Nothing too conclusive but suggestive at least.

Maju: "To me it's a pretty intriguing mess of a puzzle. And I don't expect to solve it in many years - maybe we lack key evidence and that's why it's so difficult to understand."

I agree that it's a difficult puzzle. But we don't have to piece it all together at once. For me, at this point, it's enough to be able to observe this very striking correlation, which cannot be dismissed, no matter what else you might think or how skeptical you might be about any of the details.

In hockey, this would be even better than a hat trick, right? We see how four different mysteries could be explained by a single correlation: the gap in the distribution of tone languages; the gap in the distribution of P/B; the gap in the distribution of negrito populations; the gap in the genetic record (whether due to a bottleneck or for some other reason yet to be determined). Could it be a coincidence? I suppose maybe it could. But I think it would take more explaining to dismiss it as a coincidence than to accept it as something meaningful.

No idea: I know as much of hockey as of mammoth hunting. Maybe a soccer expression? ;)

... the gap in the distribution of tone languages...

On this I'd like to make a warning. I am not totally sure but a reader pointed to me that Indochina (though possibly not Southern China) might have been inhabited in the past (Hoabinhian culture) by different peoples, more akin, if anything, to Negritos or Melanesians maybe. He citied this paper, where the Hang-Cho Man (North Vietnam, Hoabinhian culture) is found to match better with (depending on the method): Liujiang skull, Australian Aborigines, Tolai (a people of New Guinea) and Paleolithic remains from Flores, not with modern day SE Asians. However it is true that no East Eurasian (not many) remains fit with modern people metrics in the same area before Neolithic (I have some doubts about a skull from Okinawa: Minatogawa, which looks proto-Mongoloid to me) and that the same is true for other areas before the Late UP probably.

What I mean is that there might well have been demic migrations associated to the spread of Austroasiatic and the other SE Asian languages in Neolithic times. I'm not sure but it's something you should consider re the tonal languages area of SE Asia.

Also I don't see any real coincidence between B1 (or any other P/B) musical style and tonal languages, actually the opposite: B1 is almost unheard of in SE Asia. The survivals of A (P/B) style are in fact all in remote corners of Eurasia: Europe, the Arctic and some other scattered spots, in spite of your reconstruction.

It seems to me that East Asians and the peoples of Sundaland-Sahul also were deprived of that tradition. They are "normal" in Eurasia, not the exception. The exception is the survival of modified P/B in scattered and unrelated groups.

... the gap in the distribution of negrito populations...

You insist in comparing Negritos to Africans. But in fact they cluster best with Caucasoids in anthropometric terms, at least Andamanese do. I do see many nearly Caucasoid faces among Melanesians and Negritos, though of course this is somewhat subjective (but also intuitive, instinctive) but it happens to me a lot anyhow, sure that they often have broader noses and always darker skins but otherwise they look markedly related to West Eurasians in physiognomy.

I even imagine that a Australoid-to-Caucasoid morphology range would have been the Eurasian ancestral morphotype (always in dark tones, of course), with the Mongoloid type being the main exception and the one going off the pattern, somewhat mysteriously. Archaic types certainly approach better this Aus/Cau range in all cases but Minatogawa, except a few that could be more "Negroid".

Whatever the case, the spread of tone languages in East Asia corresponds fairly well with the hypothesis of Neolithic spread of a Mongoloid subtype ("Sinoid" I call it), though instead of having a Mongolian homeland, it would have got a South Chinese one probably (Hunan has the oldest confirmed Eastern Neolithic culture).

Another issue could be the preservation of such feature in Papua, which might be a Middle Paleolithic colonization feature or a Neolithic one maybe.

... the gap in the genetic record...

What I tried to explain in the previous post, is that there is no such a clear gap in fact. To me it looks like, after a not too long period of coalescence (possibly in the Africa-to-Southern-Asia route) there was a demic explosion, followed by less dramatic expansions. I see no gap anywhere, except in the distribution of Y-DNA DE. That's why I don't agree with Oppenheimer easily.

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This Blog deals with theories I'm currently exploring regarding the early history and origins of some of the oldest musical traditions still alive in the world today, based on research presented in my essay, Echoes of Our Forgotten Ancestors. [By permission of the publisher, VWB-Verlag, this essay may now be freely downloaded by clicking on the above link. A hard copy of the entire issue may be purchased at the following website: http://www.vwb-verlag.com/Katalog/m748.html.] My work is based on intriguing parallels I've noticed between the distribution patterns of certain musical style families, and the general outlines of the "Out of Africa" theory currently being explored in the field of genetic anthropology. This blog should be of special interest to professionals and students in fields such as ethnomusicology, anthropology, archaeology, historical linguistics and population genetics. However, I've made an effort to minimize the technical terminology in the hope that anyone with an interest in world music can follow most of the arguments. As my ideas are, at this point, still in the process of development, I could use as much feedback as possible, so please feel free to participate in this process with your comments and questions, even if -- especially if -- you disagree. Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of my essay should contact me privately, via email: victorag at verizon.net.N.B.: TO EXPAND ARCHIVE LISTINGS, CLICK ON "ARROWS" TO THE LEFT OF EACH DATE

Dr. Victor Grauer, based in Pittsburgh, PA,is a composer, musicologist, film‑maker, media artist, poet and dramatist.He holds a Masters Degree in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University (1961), with additional studies in that field at UCLA (1961-62), and a Ph. D. in Music Composition from SUNY Buffalo (1972).He was co-creator, with Alan Lomax, of the Cantometric coding system in 1961 and worked on the Cantometrics Project as Research Associate, under Lomax’s supervision, from 1963 through 1966.His creative work has been presented in many venues worldwide, including Lincoln Center (the New York Film Festival), Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh), The Kitchen (New York), The Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), the Barbicon Center (London), etc.His writings on musicology and the arts have been published in journals such as Ethnomusicology, Semiotica, Art Criticism, Music Theory Online, Other Voices,Millennium Film Journal, The World of Music and Before Farming.In 1998 he received the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Creative Achievement Award.Grauer has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, the Pittsburgh High School of the Creative and Performing Arts and Chatham College.He is presently engaged in research linking his work with Lomax on Cantometrics with current developments in genetic anthropology and archaeology.